Broken Skies

“Lir won’t let anything bad happen to me.”

“You don’t know that. I know you think he’s being up front with you, but what if he’s not? You have no idea what you’re getting into in that city. They might look like us, but they’re still aliens. They came here and never offered to help us, never suggested integration, nothing. Just holed up in the city and ignored us. But it turns out they’ve been here a while, you and Jace are proof of that. What if they’ve been here even longer than that? What if they caused the Collapse and now they’re just biding their time while the rest of us die off?”

The implications of that make my head spin. What if…?

He must take my silence as understanding. “As crude as it is, there’s a reason for the breeder camps. Fewer children are being born and those that are, they’re sickly. Every child born in the last ten years.” I fill in the rest of that thought on my own. Every child born since the aliens moved into the city…

I’d known there were tensions between humans and the aliens, but it had never been something I paid attention too. Dad hadn’t raised us that way, though I guess I now know the reason why. Even level-headed Emily didn’t trust Lir, yelled at him, called him ‘it’ like the others. Once again, there’s so much more going on that I’ve been completely oblivious to. What else have I been blind to?

Flint sighs and studies his feet. “Unless, you can talk the erk into bringing me in too, I need you to do this. Jace would never forgive me if I let you walk into that city without some kind of back up plan.” He raises his face, anguish etched into his features. “You know what they’ve been doing to him, you’ve seen it. What if they get their hands on you too? I don’t think you’d come back from something like that, Jax, not again, and we have no idea how much damage they’ve already done to him.”

As I study his features, pain and longing obvious on his face, another thing I’d been too selfish to see becomes clear. “You and Jace, huh?”

Shock crosses his face and he shakes his head frantically and takes a step back. He watches my face for a beat and then his shoulders slump, he sighs and nods. “Nobody else knows. My father would… not be happy.”

“How long have you guys been…together?”

“There’s always been something between us, but we didn’t…act on it until about a year and a half ago.” He meets my eyes. “I love him. I would do anything for him.”

“That makes two of us then.” I smile. “With the two of us on his side, no one can stand in our way.”

He laughs and wipes at his eyes with his sleeve. “So you’ll do it? Give me the device to hold on to?”

“Yes, I trust you. Though I might have to smack my brother around a bit for keeping this from me,” I say, throwing one arm over his shoulders. “You guys could have told me you know.”

Flint brings his other arm around and pulls me into a hug, resting his chin on my head. “Yeah. We were just so used to hiding it and we thought—”

“—you were doing what was best for me.” His chin bobs. “Do me a favor, next time you and Jace decide to do ‘what’s best for me’ without consulting me, smack yourselves upside the head.”

“Will do,” says Flint, chuckling.

NINETEEN

Two hours later, I watch Flint’s form recede into the distance as Lir drives us down Peter’s driveway. Flint and I spent a while in the woods discussing our plan and by the time we got back to Peter and Lir, they had gotten the truck ru

Flint raises one hand in a wave, a somber expression on his face. When he lowers his hand, he pats the front pocket of his jacket lightly, the pocket that contains the small metal object from Dane’s desk. The reassurance I get from knowing he’ll do what’s needed is barely enough to edge out the gut-twisting guilt from not telling Lir about any of it. One week and then Flint will come in after me. I only hope I don’t need that time. I return his wave and send a second, happier, wave to Peter.

The silence between Lir and I borders on uneasy. He hasn’t said more than a few words to me since my breakdown in the driveway. Actually, the whole bordering thing isn’t true; It is uneasy. My mind still reels from my stupidity for kissing him and, even more important, the new knowledge of my heritage and potential abilities.

Obviously, the alien part of me can co

Back at Peter’s, I’d recognized the foreign emotions coming from Lir, but they were strong and almost overwhelming. I can’t pinpoint any other time when I… co

I burrow back into my seat, pull my legs up, and tuck them under me. Flint’s words dance in my head, poking at my own doubts and fears. I’ve spent barely over two weeks with Lir. Is that really long enough to know someone, to trust someone? Especially considering we weren’t speaking for a few days and I was out of my mind for another few.

When not sleeping or ill, I’ve been the one doing most of the talking. He’s been a steady, quiet presence, giving very little away. Or has he?

He said he’d heard rumors, but rumors of what exactly? The aliens as far as anyone knows stay in their city. How would the possibility of my heritage, my existence reach their ears? If they knew… that would mean that, as Flint said, they have been here far longer than anyone realized. But why hide that? What isn’t he telling me?

Driving is much quicker than hiking and it’s a little over an hour before we reach the outskirts of the city. The closer we get to the towering buildings in the distance, the more his muscles tense. His shoulders push back and he sits straighter. I can see his hands clenching around the steering wheel and I want to comfort him, reassure him that this is going to be okay, offer him the same comfort he has offered me before. But I don’t know how to bridge this distance forming between us, how to cross over the gaping chasm of my uncertainty and newfound distrust.

The wind has pulled my hair from its braid, so I run my fingers through it and redo the braid, twisting it into a bun on the back of my neck. Waves of tension cross the car and roll into me. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and try to focus on keeping my breath steady. He’s doing it again. Has he been doing it all along? I want to ask, but icy trails of my own fear are starting to climb my spine as we draw even nearer to the city.

As my pulse ratchets up, the flow of… whatever it is coming from Lir cuts off abruptly and even more abruptly, the tires move into the gravel on the side of the road as he pulls the truck to a stop.

“What are you doing?”

Lir turns to meet my eyes, a nervous expression on his face. What now? “Before we go in there, there are some things you should know.” My face must do something strange because he is quick to reassure me. “Nothing bad, well, not…” Lir blows a breath out through pursed lips. “There are a lot of things that I haven’t told you.”

“No kidding,” I say dryly. “If we’re getting things out in the open, how about we start with the whole emotion sharing thing or whatever it is because that kinda creeps me out.”